Tales from the Grand Line
by NikoArtagnan
Summary: The most dangerous sea in all the world has many stories to tell. (One Piece one-shots/drabbles)
1. loyalty

**loyalty**

The outcome of his mission to Thriller Bark surprises even him. (Drabble, Chapter 485 Coda)

**Author's Note: **Decided to do a One Piece drabbles series. Won't intersect with my OtOB story, but will be (mostly) canon ficlets/drabbles, to help me work on characterization, and to work past writer's block.

* * *

He inspires fear wherever he goes. His power is beyond the realm of imagining to all unfortunate enough to witness (or experience) it, and with his power, comes deference and groveling respect from those weaker than him. It had not been that way with the revolutionaries, but with the rest of the world…meh.

Thriller Bark comes as a surprise to him.

He looks out at the sea, and if he had been capable of such things, would have smiled as he remembered the pirates screaming their defiance of him in defense of Mugiwara no Luffy.

_"__I hope you will keep your promise after I die," Roronoa Zoro says quietly, the knowledge of his own death clear in his eyes, but there is no fear. Because it is either his life, or his Captain's. And that is no real choice at all._

Bartholomew Kuma looks to the sky.

"To find such loyal companions…Your son is quite amazing, Dragon."


	2. parting is such sweet sorrow

**parting is such sweet sorrow**

It's the end of the road for her, but not for them. (Chapter 430)

* * *

**Author's Note:** Oda made me cry over a goddamned _pirate ship_. I hate that bastard. (but he's a fucking genius)

* * *

When she sees the ship coming, a shudder runs through her frame. She knows she cannot go any further, but she has saved her family. She breathes, and then there is pain, a cracking, horrendous noise and she splits almost in half, while her family screams her name, and her captain begs a man on the bigger ship to save her.

She wishes she could take them to the ends of the sea and back. The fire rolls up her mast as she apologizes to her crew, to her captain, who cries unashamedly, apologizing himself.

_"__But I was happy,_" she tells them. She never once regretted it. She wore those scars as proudly as any of them, because they marked her as indelibly a Straw Hat as any flag ever could. She wishes she could go further with them, be with her family until the end but she has gone as far as she can.

She got them this far, and she hopes there will be another ship, stronger than her, one that can get them to the ends of the earth. She hopes they will remember her.

Crystalline flakes of snow fall in lazy circles from a sky that's a deep shade of gray, and the water reflects the flames that consume the straw hatted Jolly Roger flying high, and its ashes dance crazily in the breeze.

She sees them all standing there on the boats beyond. Her sniper, her navigator, her swordsman, her doctor, her historian, her cook. And her captain. Her captain who will be the King of the Kings, and sit upon the throne of the sea.

_"__Thank you for taking good care of me until now,"_ she tells them. _"I was so happy."_

It's the end of the road for her, but not for them.

_"__I love you,_" she whispers, and then there is darkness.

And that is enough for her.


	3. kyoudai

**kyoudai**

He remembers. (Chapter 751)

* * *

**Author's Note:** I ship Koala/Sabo something fierce. It's very definitely implied here. (kyoudai means brothers)

* * *

He remembers the day the newspaper came.

He remembers the picture of Ace's Wanted poster, and the one below it – Luffy staring into the sky, eyes white and streaming tears, mouth slack in a silent scream, and their smiling brother lying on his lap, bleeding, broken, _dead._

He remembers screaming and screaming and screaming, Koala's arms like vices around his chest as she dragged him away from Dragon, dragged him back to their room so he could rage and break things and finally _shatter_ into her arms, sobbing for his brothers.

He remembers days of self-hate enough to crush a hundred men, of bitter guilt that leaves a wake of shattered mirrors in his wake – WHY WASN'T I_ THERE?!_ - and of standing on a cliff and wondering if even the sea could clean a soul stained black with grief.

He remembers Koala telling him that what he lives for, what he's always lived for, and what he will _continue_ to live for, and he steps away from the edge, because if anyone would know his grief, it would be her, with eyes that are as full of guilt as his, guilt for the man who gave her the sun and died in return.

He remembers Luffy's pictures in the next newspaper, bandaged, bruised, but not broken, eyes closed with flowers in his arms, the next of him ringing in the new era, ringing a bell no pirate has ever dared to touch.

He remembers the day Nico Robin comes to Baltigo, bearing stories of a Luffy who smashed shut a Crocodile's jaws to protect a friend's kingdom, a Luffy who declared war on the World Government to save the "Demon Child", a Luffy who took on Impel Down for his brother, a Luffy who made a group of outcasts one of the most feared and insanely loyal crews in all the world.

He remembers pride.

He remembers seeing Luffy again, in the New World. He remembers the tears in his little brother's eyes. He remembers the warmth that his entire body had become as the Mera-Mera no Mi settles in his stomach and the way the ring explodes beneath his fiery fist. He remembers sitting at Ace's grave with tears streaming down his cheeks.

He faces down an Admiral with blind eyes who see far more than most people ever could and he smiles like the rising of the sun as he remembers two boys who gave him the world and three cups of sake to forge a bond even stronger than blood.

_"__After this, we will be brothers."_


End file.
